It starts with a happy thought
by gypsy rosalie
Summary: 'The spell is tough. Trying to feel happy is tougher.' Taz learns to conjure a Patronus.


**I've been rereading Harry Potter and the idea for a Starship/HP crossover decided to manifest itself in my brain. This is just to test the water before I attempt to post a longer fic, and I have no idea how it's gonna go down. It's more real HP verse than AVPM verse, there's just one reference I couldn't help but put in.**

**I hope this isn't too confusing. Basically I'm working under the mentality that in this crossover universe it was the Death Eaters who invaded Taz's _quinceañera _rather than robots. And yes, there is a little bit of TUp in it. Couldn't resist.**

**Anyway...hope you like.**

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><p>It isn't easy. He's warned her it won't be but the difficulty of the spell angers her all the same. In any other circumstances she'd throw her wand down, storm out or maybe hex him to make him pay for her frustration. The fact that he's being so patient, keeping his voice calm when her shrieking is just <em>asking<em> him to shout at her, just makes her even madder. If this weren't so necessary she'd up and leave right now. She's never had much tolerance for tasks that annoy her. But it _is_ necessary, so very very necessary in these times, after all that's happened to her, so she stays for just one more try.

**_It starts with a happy thought…_**

Just hearing him say that is enough to set her teeth on edge. She swallows his words like a personal offense- maybe because she doesn't have all that many happy thoughts bubbling around in her head. Her life, up until this point, hasn't exactly been wonderful, and all the happy memories she does have are tainted by the horror of that one terrifying night when she lost everything. They've sort of lost their edge since then.

'Any happy little thought?' she mimics in a childish voice; her classic technique of making ridicule out of things which upset her. He's not fooled, and he gives her a look that tells her so, one eyebrow raised. She looks down, avoiding his eyes.

'Try it.'

She screws her eyes up tight, tries to think of something, anything. She settles for the last time she kicked that _cabron_ Junior in the face. It made her smirk at the time, why not?

The room goes dark. Her fingers tighten around her wand. _I'm kicking Hunior in the face, I'm k…_

The darkness swirls around her, the voices and the screams and her _quinceañera _all blurring together before her mind's eye, all her warmth draining away, the ceiling lurching above her as the back of her head hits the ground.

**_It starts with a happy thought…a powerful thought…_**

'It's okay, Taz. No-one does it first time.' She comes to with her mentor's arm around her shoulders and immediately shakes off the comforting gesture. She's furious, she has every right to be- he's deliberately putting her through this fear, this torment- and he's telling her to be _happy_ about it. She hits him.

'This is _muy estúpido!_ I am never gonna get the hang of this!' She waits for him to tell her off, the way he always does when she says this about things he's trying to teach her. The reprimand comes, the same words as usual but his tone remains soft. She wonders what the hell he's playing at.

'Remember what I told you?' he says, stroking her under the chin with his thumb, 'no matter how hard you get knocked down you just gotta get back up.'

She jabs her wand at his forehead, threatening him.

'Why are you being like this?' her hand shakes, she has a good mind to curse him- only she doesn't know any curses.

'_Because,_' he says with just a hint of frustration as he pushes her wand away from him, 'anger- yours _or_ mine- is gonna get you nowhere with this spell! You need to focus on a good memory; a good feeling.'

'The Patronus is tough,' she mutters.

'Go again,' he says.

**_It starts with a happy thought…a powerful thought…let it fill you up…_**

The problem is she just can't get that surge of pleasant emotion. The spell is tough. Trying to feel happy is tougher. He unlocks the door, she tries not to look at the creature as it cascades into the room, tries not to think of the images it sparks to life in her head. _I kicked Hunior in the face. I did._ She tries to do what he told her- let the thought fill her, feel like it's occurring again before her eyes, like she's reliving the moment.

'_Expect…'_ a feeble curl of light sputters out the end of her wand but she can't even finish the words, she's drained.

She sees her family, hears the screams, the tables being overturned, herself in a meringue-like dress that makes running impossible. She feels her legs try to move, the masked figures making their way closer to her, the terrifying image of the skull in the sky, a snake twisting through its mouth…

'Maybe your memory's what's lettin' you down.'

She fights off the urge to jab him with her wand for this remark. Of _course_ it's her memory that's letting her down- no fleeting, cheery moment could ever override the horrors she's faced.

'Is no good,' she growls. 'I don't have any happy memories.' She sits down sharply, puts her head in her hands. She wonders for a moment if he thinks she's crying- she's not, she never does- but she is almost at the point of despair. She feels a warm hand on her shoulder.

'Now that's just not true, Taz.' Everyone has _something_- something to smile about, or…' he pauses, 'hope for. Maybe what you need more than a _specific_ memory is a feelin' of hope.'

She tries to process this. 'Does that work?'

'It might.' His other hand finds its way to her other shoulder. It does help, she grudgingly admits, though not out loud. It comforts her- his touch makes her haunting memories seem a little further away- with his presence, his touch and the yellow evening light surrounding them it seems hard to think she was so terrified a few seconds ago. But she knows she was, she knows all it'll take will be the shadow of a Dementor and she'll be filled with fear again.

'It might,' he says again, turning her round to face him, his deep blue eyes staring right into her soul. She's still doubtful.

'I believe,' he says, very slowly, careful emphasis on each word, 'that you can do it, Taz.'

He leans closer to her, presses a brief, tender kiss to her mouth. Her heart skips a beat, her eyes flutter. Her teeth are chattering and she's filled all over with a strange sensation; a sort of fuzzy feeling.

It might be hope. It might be shock. She isn't sure.

'Go again,' he says.

**_It starts with a happy thought…a powerful thought…let it fill you up, then say the incantation._**

She tries to ignore the blackness surrounding her, tries to maintain the high that Up's kiss brought her. At first it starts to work. She concentrates hard on that feeling, on the pair of lips pushing down on hers, trying to relive it as she raises her wand.

'_Expec…'_

But the Dementor ghosts closer and she tumbles back into her memory, she's struggling to run in her encumbering _quinceañera _dress, she's toppling over. The screams are around her, above her, the Death Eaters approaching, the Dark Mark above her head…

And then she remembers. The beam of light that sends her attackers hurtling backwards, the man's voice reassuring her, _it's okay, they're gone._ A strong hand that reaches down to clasp hers and pull her off the ground. The blue eyes of the man who rescued her, and will keep rescuing her no matter what they face. He always has. He always will. It's not precisely a _happy_ memory- she'd still suffered loss- but she'd been saved. It's more like a sense of safety, the realisation that no matter what adversity has or will hit her, she's got someone to take care of her.

She focuses on those blue eyes. She raises her wand.

'_Expecto patronum!'_

A brilliant silver shape bursts forth.


End file.
